


Their Truth Is Out There

by Winterstar



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Hurt Tony, M/M, Maybe - Freeform, Maybe more - Freeform, Not a Crossover, Not a fusion, The X Files Inspired, more to come - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-26
Updated: 2016-01-26
Packaged: 2018-05-16 08:24:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5821201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Winterstar/pseuds/Winterstar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three years ago Tony Stark was one of the top agents for the FBI. Medals, success, and a bright future - everyone thought he would be the next director of the agency. Plus, he was in a wonderful relationship with one of the up and coming agents, a former army Captain, Steve Rogers. That was before the abduction, before he nearly died and came back to the world with an alien device implanted in his chest and a story no one would believe. He lost his position and his love. One day he'll find a way to get his life back, because he knows the truth is out there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Their Truth Is Out There

“You need to stop.”

Tony looks up from the tablet perched on his legs. He flicks the cigarette and the hot ashes flutter down around him like stars falling from the sky. He scoffs at the thought and brings his legs down from his tool bench while grabbing the tablet before it slides to its inevitable doom on the trash laden floor. 

“Don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“This,” Steve says as he walks into the tiny office. Tony’s tiny little hovel in the basement of the FBI. They squirreled him away down here when he came back from his three month abduction. They try and pretend everything is okay, that he’s okay. 

He is not okay.

“Don’t know what you’re talking about Cap,” Tony says and stands up. He tosses the tablet onto the bench with all of his projects, his ideas, and his research. They don’t want him to do his research. “Do you need something? Are you looking for your tablet because it’s completely fucked.” Tony reaches across the bench and digs under an array of tools to find Rogers’ government issued iPad. “I told you this thing was trash.”

“I didn’t come down here to talk about my iPad. Director Pierce wants your ass.”

“My ass is only for you, sweetie pie,” Tony says around the cigarette that hangs off his lips. 

Steve only rolls his eyes. “Can we be serious? Pierce doesn’t want you to talk to the new recruits. You’re scaring them.”

“Scaring them with the truth.” Tony says and then picks sleep out of his eyes. Truth be told, he needs a nap and Rogers being down here is seriously interrupting his afternoon snooze time. “Go away.”

“The truth? What kind of truth? The truth about little green aliens.”

“Everyone thinks they are green, why the hell do you think they’re green,” Tony says and tears the cigarette from his lips. He smashes it onto Steve’s iPad to elicit a grimace from the man. After three months of hell, so much hell and torment, you would think someone would listen to him. Someone at the god damned FBI would realize that he was abducted by fucking aliens. 

“Tony, please, you have to stop this,” Steve says and steps further into the cave of an office they relegated Tony to in the basement behind the HVAC room for the entire building. “You know that the analyst team has a position open? You could apply.” 

“Apply,” he says and laughs. He tries not to see the hurt behind Steve’s eyes. Why does he keep thinking of him as Steve. He’s not Steve anymore, he’s only Rogers. His former partner, his former lover. “She good to you?”

“What?”

“Natasha, is she a good partner for you?” Tony asks and that’s when the room settles like the gravity in their vicinity grows ten times stronger. Steve’s shoulders slump which is a feat, and he looks away. The defeat wraps around them both, time and distance separates them from victory.

“Tony, please.”

“Do you go out for drinks with her, too? Show her a good time after a long day in the trenches of the FBI?” Tony asks and he knows he’s being cruel. He has to be this way, he needs to snap, and strike like a viper because otherwise his heart would disintegrate and fall down. There would be nothing left of him. Only the ashes like the cigarette. Hot and cold in an instant.

“Please.”

“You beg pretty,” Tony says and that turns the moment, causes the pain to flare to anger.

“You know what?” Steve says and turns away. “Fuck you, Stark, fuck you.” He heads out of the office and into the narrow hallway before Tony realizes that he’s rushing after him. Steve always had a draw, an allure that Tony could never refuse. 

“Steve, Steve,” Tony yells as he hurries past the pipes and the wires – the infrastructure of the building. They hid him well and deep in the bowels of hell. 

Steve stops, and he does because Tony knows, knows that he could never deny Tony either. They are addicts and stupidly so for one another. “What?” His voice sounds beaten and Tony shuffles to a stop about a meter away from Steve.

He doesn’t know what to say, because he never had a plan. He only wants Steve not to go. They used to be good for one another, now they are just a disease. “You, I-your tablet. You forgot it.”

“Did you fix it?” Steve says and the depression rings through Tony reverberating around his damaged heart.

“I told you I can’t,” Tony says. And there it is, they could never fix anything.

But for some unspoken reason, Steve turns and faces Tony. His eyes are shadows, the blue like glass and steel and raw like pain. “What do you want me to do, Tony? How do you want me to do this?”

“I want you,” Tony stops and pauses because he doesn’t have any more to that sentence. 

Steve saves him like he always has, like he always will do. “Take the analyst job, Tony. You don’t deserve to be relegated to the basement, to a low tech repair job.”

“They don’t want me,” Tony says and then Steve does something he hasn’t done in what feels like a million years. 

He bridges the distance between them and reaches out, touching Tony’s arm, sliding his hand down to grasps his hand. “Take the job. Fury wants you in the position. Everyone knows you’re the best out there. You were a crack agent in your time.”

“Yeah,” Tony says and looks away into the shadows and the darkness. The darkness is where he belongs like a mole scraping and clawing his way through the dirt. “Yeah, before I went crazy and started telling everyone I got abducted by aliens.”

“Tony,” Steve says and flinches as if Tony’s hit him. “Please.”

“You say that to me a lot, what do you want from me? To lie?” Tony says and he releases Steve’s hand. “It isn’t a fairy tale, I didn’t make it up.” He tugs down his t-shirt – he hasn’t worn a suit and tie since the leadership decided the easiest thing to do to hide their embarrassment was to imprison him in a basement office. “How can you take their side? Look what they did to me, look what happened to me?”

Steve bites at his lips; his eyes belying all of his pain. He could never hide it all from Tony. He touches the scars on Tony’s chest; the scars that lead to the device implanted in Tony’s chest. What it is, Tony figured out. It’s some kind of electromagnetic device that must be keeping all of the metal that the aliens implanted from going to his heart and brain. 

“Tony, I don’t know what this is,” Steve says and touches the scars. “But put it behind you, find a way, please.”

“Put it behind you,” he laughs. “That’s what people who’ve never been through trauma say to those of us who’ve been through it.” 

“That’s not fair.”

And Steve is right. He’s been through devastating times as well when he was in the army. He watched his friend lose an arm. He was responsible for Barnes’ fall. He still has nightmares about it, Tony knows. He held Steve through those dark dreams many times. 

“No,” Tony admits. “It isn’t.”

Steve nods and takes his hand away. “Come on, Tony, take the job. They opened it up for you. They want you out of the pit.”

Tony chuckles and rubs the heels of his hands into his eyes. He watches the bright flashes of light and wonders if there’s truth in that light. “An analyst job?” He drops his hands. “An analyst job, sounds boring.”

Steve points to the door behind Tony, through the unlit hallway. “Better than down here. You’ll be our analyst.”

“Your team?” Tony says and he hates the hope in his voice. Being close to Steve for the first time, they would work together even after everything. “Your team?”

“Yeah, my team,” Steve says and suddenly he looks awkward like he doesn’t know what to do with his hands. “Come on, we need a good analyst. Barton isn’t good for shit.”

“Barton is playing as your analyst, seriously?” It feels too familiar, too easy to fall back into this place, this comfortable relationship with Steve.

“Well, we need an analyst,” Steve says and finally relents and folds his arms around himself. “Barton is a field agent, not an analyst.”

Tony almost reminds Steve he had been one of the best field agents as well, before the abduction. But they’ve already been there and back. He could have found a way out of the pit himself, but he didn’t want them experimenting on him. So the pit and his own research became his life. He swallows down the words and meets Steve’s eyes. “You’re sure, they want me?”

“Yeah, the team needs you,” Steve stutters through the word _team_.

“The team?” Tony says and there’s a glimmer, a glint in Steve’s eyes. 

“Come back,” Steve asks and offers his hand. He’s trying to suppress a smile, but not succeeding. 

Tony doesn’t touch people, not anyone. But Steve. He can touch Steve. “Come back?

“Yeah, come back to our team,” Steve says, waiting for Tony to take his hand.

After a long moment, Tony grasps Steve’s hand. “Back to your team?”

Steve covers Tony’s hand with his own. “Yes, back to my team.”

**Author's Note:**

> hmmm, guess I lied when I said no more WIP - right? Why did I do this? Damn you, Mulder and Scully!
> 
> Any good, anything? 
> 
> Follow me on [tumblr](http://winterstar95.tumblr.com)


End file.
